


Brief as the Lightning

by pearl_o



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Late at Night, M/M, Nightmares, Siblings, Storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 02:28:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven reacts to the storm the same way she and Charles always have before. Charles doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brief as the Lightning

Raven woke up, suddenly, to the sound of a clap of thunder. It was followed in a matter of seconds by another. The rain was loud, not just pouring but aggressively slamming against her window and the roof. 

She leaned over to her nightstand and groped around for the lamp. It didn't click on. Her entire room was pitch black - even the thin space under her doorway showed no light coming in from the hallway, and there was always a light on there.

A storm, and a power outage. She was climbing out of her bed without even thinking about it, grabbing her bathrobe off the back of her door and heading out into the hallway. There had never been any problem getting to Charles's bedroom without lights. She could do the trip in her sleep, blindfolded, hopping on one leg; that was how many times they had smoothed the trail between them during their childhood.

She stopped outside Charles's door and pulled on the knob, but it wouldn't open. It was locked. Raven stared down at the handle for a moment, shocked into stillness. Charles had never locked his door, not once over all these years; it made the hair on the back of her neck prickle up. She knocked on the door a few times lightly. There was no answer.

She was being silly, she thought. It had been years, after all, and she and Charles had both put all of that behind them. Charles probably didn't even get the nightmares anymore - he never had in Oxford, or in New York before that. It was just being back in the Westchester house after all these years had her on edge. The good memories of this house were outweighed by the not-so-good for both of them. There was a reason they had left it as soon as they could, and the fact that Charles was trying to recreate now as something good and shared and lovely didn't erase all of that.

It was just - she had all those memories of sitting in bed, next to Charles in his bed in the black, when the power was out. Not even saying anything; just being there with him had been enough, somehow, for him to fall back asleep peacefully.

If he needed her now, he would have called for her, Raven told herself. But he wouldn't be able to, if he was asleep. For all he talked about how his telepathic powers should apply to his dreams, he'd never actually been able to put it into practice yet.

There had been any number of nights when they were younger that Charles had sat all night with her, holding her hand, pushing the nightmares away. Too many for her to count, at least. 

She knocked on the door louder, keeping up a steady, hard-to-ignore rhythm.

Finally, the door opened. 

"It's the middle of the night." It was Erik's voice, not Charles's. Even in the darkness, if she squinted she could barely make him out, the lines of his shape, bigger than Charles would be. "What do you want?"

"I- This should be Charles's room," Raven said in some confusion. It wasn't possible for her to get that wrong, surely. The route was ingrained in her memory.

"It is," Erik said shortly. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to check on him," Raven said. 

She couldn't see Erik's face, but she could imagine the frown that was covering his face. "Check on him for what?"

"It's - there's a storm," Raven said. "Look, just let me inside-"

"He's sleeping," Erik said, but at the same time Charles's voice chimed in from farther within the room. "For god's sake, Erik."

He _had_ been sleeping, Raven thought; that was the way Charles sounded when he was only half awake. She could hear his vague-sounding mumble and the sounds of him crawling out of bed and towards the doorway. Erik's form left the doorway, to replaced with the smaller, familiar shape of Charles. 

He reached out to her, and she let him pull her into a hug. "Are you all right, Raven, what do you need?" Charles said, rubbing a circle on her back. He sounded concerned, but also casual. Like he knew it couldn't be anything serious. Like perhaps it was just one of her whims, bothering him in the middle of the night. Raven felt relieved and frustrated, both at the same time. She let herself fall further into the hug. Charles was just wearing an undershirt and shorts, rather than his usual silky pajamas. His skin was a little unpleasantly sweaty, but still comforting.

"The power's out," she said - quietly, because she didn't necessarily think Charles would want Erik to hear. "I just had to come make sure you were okay."

"Oh, Raven," Charles said, and he turned his head, pressing a kiss to her hair. "Aren't you a darling? Thank you. I promise you, I'm doing absolutely fine." He let go of her, and took a step back. "Shall we go find some candles, or do you think it can wait until the morning?"

"It can wait," Raven said. "Go back to sleep."

He reached out and squeezed her hand gently, and then the door closed again.

Raven yawned to herself and turned back around to follow the trail in reverse, back to her bedroom. It was only when she was crawling into her own bed again that it occurred to her to wonder what on earth Erik had been doing in Charles's room himself.


End file.
